Knitmedia was a start-up aka “A Supply Chain of Unlimited Content.” During the first .com boom. Knitmedia was the brainchild of The Knitting Factory founder and owner, Michael Dorf who now has built The City Winery and taken it across the nation. (I recently worked with him for a short period once again at the first City Winery in NYC right before he launched his second in Chicago.)
Knitmedia encompassed a huge lot of businesses including Knitactive, KnitClassics, Jazfest, Jazzee, and a few more .coms producing music, records, content and archives about music online and in live digital network feeds available worldwide.
I started working on building content for the jazze.com site meant to be the Jazz answer to the All Music Guide. Researching Jazz greats and adding wikipedia-like level of information to a database we furnished and shared online.
Quickly I was scooped up by Michael to be his assistant and while there I worked on everything from HR to shuffling contracts and escorting big names acts on his behalf.
Hanging with acts like the Wu-Tang Clan, Beck, Sonic Youth, Lou Reed and Al Green as well as working on talent for the 1999 Bell Atlantic Jazz Festival had me working all hours.
We opened Knitting Factory LA in the final few months Michael still owned the business and it was fun to plan the opening acts and events and attend such an iconic addition to LA’s already rich music scene.
As with all .com’s at that time, we went bust and Knitmedia shuttered quickly. My favorite moment, when I answered a call and asked who was calling and the man on the other end replied, “Hello, it’s Mr. Wonder.”
